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Cooks Mills is a small community in the easternmost part of the city of Welland in Ontario, Canada. It was established, and is still centred, on a Welland River tributary called Lyons Creek. It is almost entirely a bedroom community, as there are few employers located in the area.

The community predates the establishment of what is now downtown Welland. In 1799, when present-day Welland was farmland, the Yokom family came from Pennsylvania and built a grist mill on Lyon’s Creek. (Today, one of the roads in Cooks Mills is called Yokom Road after them.) Just before the War of 1812, an Englishman called Calvin Cook purchased the mill and added a tannery, a sawmill and a distillery. The place known as Cook’s Mills became a prominent community of the Crowland Township; some early maps call the location Crowland Village.

Towards the end of the War of 1812, a fire fight occurred at Cooks Mills, involving an American contingent sent to destroy flour and grain that might benefit the British. Early on the morning of October 19, 1814, the American picket at Misener’s Hollow, just east of the mills, was attacked by soldiers of the Glengarry Light Infantry. The British force was supported by a 6-pound field cannon and Congreve rockets. The Americans succeeded in driving off the British, and threw the grain and flour into the mill pond.

Lyon’s Creek headwaters were in the Wainfleet Marsh. However, they were cut off by the construction of the Feeder Canal for the Welland Canal. The creek was carried under the canal through a stone culvert. Due to the construction, the water level in the marsh slowly receded. All the while, the culvert was being clogged up by debris. Eventually, the flow in Lyons Creek decreased to the extent when it was no longer able to turn the water wheels at Cook’s Mills. The industries were closed and abandoned. Thus, the canal, which contributed greatly to development of Welland, became an indirect cause of an economic recession for Cook’s Mills. Later on, Welland beat neighbouring communities in the running for the county seat. Cook’s Mills became a farming area as opposed to Welland’s industrial centre.

Over time, the apostrophes indicating the possessive in Lyon’s Creek and Cook’s Mills were dropped following a trend in the region exemplified by St. Catharines and St. Johns.

On January 1, 1961, the Crowland Township, including Cooks Mills, was incorporated into the City of Welland.

By the time of construction of the Welland By-Pass in 1967-1973, the original headwaters in the Wainfleet Marsh have all but disappeared, and most of what flow there was in the creek was coming from an earlier tributary called Indian Creek by some maps. This made Lyons Creek somewhat U-shaped, as Indian Creek flowed west before joining the original Lyons Creek. During the By-Pass construction, the creek was cut into three parts, and now what was once Indian Creek flows into the canal (). A couple kilometres north, Lyons Creek is fed directly from the canal (). The middle part of the creek dried up and much of its bed was torn up during the construction of approaches to the Townline Tunnel.

In a recent development, a study on the pollutants in the Niagara River done in 2000 found the organic pollutants polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) to be present in the Lyons Creek. The Ontario Ministry of the Environment is investigating the source of PCBs and possible remedial actions to deal with contaminated sediment.

The Welland By-Pass channel separates Cooks Mills from the main urbanized area of City of Welland. The most direct ways of crossing the channel are the Main Street and Townline Tunnels.

Built-up areas in Cooks Mills are located close to the roads; the rest of the area consists mainly of wooded lots and fields. The Niagara Road 27, commonly known as Schisler Road, linking Welland and Niagara Falls, runs to the north of the centre of the community, and Highway 140 runs to the west, while Montrose Road runs to the east, and Netherby Road runs to the south.

The main area of Welland is located to the west. To the east is Niagara Falls, to the north is Thorold, and to the south is Port Colborne.

Coordinates: Prittlewell Priory is a medieval priory in the Prittlewell area of Southend, Essex, England. It was founded in the 12th century, by monks from the Cluniac Priory of St Pancras and passed into private hands at the time of the dissolution of the monasteries under Henry VIII. The last private owner, R. A. Jones, gave the priory and the grounds to the local council. The grounds now form a public park, Priory Park, and the Grade I listed building is open to the public. Priory Park is located adjacent to the priory.

Prittlewell Priory was founded by the Cluniac Order as a cell to the Priory of St Pancras at Lewes, Sussex. It was one of the lesser monasteries housing not more than 18 monks. In 1536 much of the building was destroyed and what remained was much altered during the 18th Century. Alterations were made again in the early 20th Century, when the Refectory was restored and partly rebuilt. A number of original features do survive, including a 12th Century doorway with chevron and dog tooth ornamentation.

After the Dissolution the Priory was a private residence. According to William White, in his 1848 Directory of Essex, on the dissolution „…[the Priory’s] revenues were valued at £194.14s.3d. per annum, and it was granted to Lord Chancellor Audley, who conveyed it to Robert, son of Lord Rich. It afterwards passed with the manor to various families“. The last family to live there, the 19th Century Scrattons, are explored in an exhibition inside the house. In 1917 the building was purchased by Robert Jones, and in May 1922 it opened as Southend’s first museum.

In 2011 works began on refurbishing the existing buildings and the construction of a new Visitor Centre. The £2 million works were in part funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund and the Cory Environmental Trust in Southend-on-Sea and were undertaken by The Facility Architects and Ibex Interiors. Works were completed in the summer of 2012 and the Priory re-opened in the June of that year. The new Visitor Centre, adjacent to the Priory, opened in February 2013.

Lewes, holding dominion over the monastery at Prittlewell, were responsible for electing the prior who would rule there. In 1311, this post was granted to William le Auvergnat. Two years into his rule, however, he was accused of corruption, and the prior of Lewes attempted to remove him.

This led to a prolonged conflict between the two priories, with Lewes promoting the ascension of James de Cusancia, and William steadfastly opposing his displacement.

Due to this unrest, the prior of Prittlewell was summoned before the King in 1318. During this audience, William outwardly resigned his position, only to return to the monastery and forcibly occupy it with his supporters.

In 1321, the monks of Lewes armed themselves and launched a counterattack, invading the priory as Mass was being said. Captives were seized and spirited away to face punishment, and William himself was struck a fatal blow at the altar, his death finally allowing James de Cusancia to succeed him as prior of Prittlewell.

In 1842 Daniel Robert Scratton inherited the Priory. Together with his wife, Maria, he renovated the buildings to provide a comfortable home. However, the couple moved to Devon in the 1860s and it was only when William Howell Scratton purchased the Priory in 1887 that it truly became a family home. The family created a walled kitchen garden, which originally had hot houses and a melon pit. This was on the site of the monks‘ burial ground. Today, it is an ornamental garden.

The Victorian extension of the Priory, which once housed the bedrooms, now hosts an interactive display on the local wildlife.

Other collections at the Priory include Daniel Robert Scratton of Prittlewell Priory, Essex by Stephen Pearce (1867) and Mrs Scratton of Prittlewell Priory by an unknown artist.

When R A Jones purchased the Priory, he also purchased a large tract of the surrounding land, which he donated to the town for the creation of Priory Park. The Park was formally opened on 14 July 1920 by the Duke of York.

Prittlewell Priory, Southend-on-Sea, in the snow

The opening of Prittlewell Priory in 2012, following refurbishment and construction of a new Visitor Centre (left of photograph)

Gates to Priory Park, Prittlewell, Southend-on-Sea. The plaques on the gateposts commemorate the presentation of the park to the people of Southend, as a gift from local jeweller and benefactor R A Jones.

The memorial stone outside Prittlewell Priory, Southend-on-Sea, commemorating donation of the priory and surrounding park by local benefactor R A Jones in 1917.

A view of Prittlewell Priory, Southend-on-Sea, from an adjacent garden in the surrounding Prittlewell Park.

Robert Brooke (December 14, 1760 – February 25, 1799) was a soldier and Virginia political figure who served as the tenth Governor of Virginia.

Robert Brooke, likely born in Spotsylvania County, Virginia, was the son of Richard Brooke, and grandson of Robert Brooke, a skilled surveyor, who had been one of Lt. Governor Alexander Spotswood’s „Knights of the Golden Horseshoe Expedition“.

He was educated at Edinburgh University, and on returning home at the beginning of the revolution was captured by Howe, British admiral, and sent back to England, whence he went to Scotland, then to France, and reached Virginia in a French vessel carrying arms for the continentals. He joined Captain Larkin Smith’s company of cavalry, was captured near Richmond by Simcoe in 1781, was exchanged, and rejoined the army.

From 1791 to 1794 he represented Spotsylvania county in the house of delegates. On December 1, 1794 he was elected governor and served two years.

In 1795 Robert Brooke built a home upon Federal Hill, which looked over Sandy Bottom to Marye’s Heights, a thousand yards away.

He was a Democratic-Republican, and in 1798 was elected attorney-general of the state, over Bushrod Washington, nephew of General Washington.

Brooke was a Freemason in Virginia, 1795-97. and in November 1795 succeeded John Marshall as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Virginia.

He died while still attorney general.

The county of Brooke, formed from Ohio county Va., now in West Virginia is called, Brooke County, West Virginia, and was named in his honor.

John Cronin (born 18 July 1971) is a repeat-offence Scottish convict who is considered by British law enforcement authorities to be the UK’s first convicted felon to be tracked by satellite. Imprisoned for running up a 140,000 kronor (US$20,500) bill in one of Sweden’s top restaurants and then refusing to pay, Cronin is infamous for a string of sex offences against women, most notably against „Judy X“, a Conservative Party worker, in May 1992. On 20 March 2013 at Antrim Crown Court, Cronin pleaded guilty to the burglary of Drumalis House (a Retreat and Conference Centre in Antrim) on 15 February 2012 and the theft of money belonging to the Church.

Cronin is also the centre of current debate in Scotland over the reporting and handling of sex offenders and how they are dealt with once out of prison.

Cronin was born in Edinburgh, the son of Michael Cronin (of Limerick, Ireland) and Jeanette Cronin (of East Lothian, Scotland). Cronin’s early years were marked with frequent moves between East Lothian, Limerick, and the U.S. (where the elder Cronin was a member of the U.S. Army). In 1978, the Cronins moved back to East Lothian to care for Jeanette’s father, who was ill. It was about this time they discovered that Cronin was in need of assistance.

By the age of three, he was already difficult for his parents to control, smashing light bulbs and breaking various things in the home. At age five, he was enrolled in a private school, but was expelled shortly thereafter for disruptive behaviour, including overturning desks, urinating on the floor and attacking teachers.

The remainder of his school years were said by Cronin to be filled with repeated difficulties; the exception to this pattern was between the ages six to eight, where he was educated by nuns at St Margaret’s convent in Edinburgh, where he developed a deep respect for the nuns. He went through several schools, where he built up a record for repeat offences at the schools, from theft and assault to openly urinating and defecating on school property.

Cronin finally obtained four O-grades at a boarding school in Newton Stewart in 1989. Shortly after leaving the school he committed his first criminal act, sexually assaulting a 14-year-old female classmate, for which he served a three-month sentence.

Around this time Cronin discussed with a social worker his plans to take his father’s military records and alter them so that he could join the IRA; it was later revealed that he tried to join another Irish terrorist group around that time.

There was a period between 1990 and 1992 that he served short prison sentences in Ireland for various crimes.

Sometime in the early 1990s, he began to pass himself off as a visiting Irish Catholic priest. His skill was competent enough that he was able to celebrate Mass with and to exploit genuine priests, often stealing from them after being given hospitality. In one case, he stole the purse of a janitor at St. Mary’s Cathedral in Edinburgh after having fooled the monsignor present.

It was this guise he used when entering the home of Judy X, a Conservative Party activist on 21 May 1992. Posing as a priest who wished to donate money to the party, he came in and sexually assaulted her repeatedly as well as beating her with a fireplace poker. Arrested shortly afterwards, his trial was brief, and in August 1992, having been called by the Scottish High Court a „Walter Mitty gone mad“, Cronin was sentenced to life in prison for the crime. A December 1992 appeal resulted in a six-year prison sentence.

Shortly after release from prison in 1997, he was jailed again, this time for making harassing phone calls and threats to various female politicians. By May 2005, he had been jailed repeatedly on various charges from petty theft to fraud to bank robbery in 2001. Cronin was severely bullied by other prisoners whilst serving a two-year sentence in Ireland’s Cork Prison for the bank robbery, spending much of the time in voluntary solitary confinement. He was arrested for petty theft only hours after his release.

In August 2007 he ran up a $20,500 bill at the exclusive Operakällaren restaurant in Stockholm, Sweden. He ordered a three course meal, with a different bottle of wine for each course. When presented with the bill, he told waiters that he could not pay it, and asked them to call the police. He was sentenced to four months jail to be served in Sweden, after which he was deported, and banned from re-entering Sweden for 5 years.

He was considered enough of a threat that the East Lothian Police set up a special unit to deal exclusively with tracking Cronin.

From the earliest points of childhood, Cronin had been involved with mental health specialists.

At the age of four, he was sent to a child psychologist who later wrote that even from the beginning, „it was clear he was not one of us.“ Two years later, at age five, he was referred to the family psychiatry department of the Royal Hospital for Sick Children, Edinburgh, where he was considered to be highly aggressive and mercurial.

Cronin’s school years expanded his psychiatric profile, with numerous instances of disruptive behaviour, most notably a 1987 incident when he was interned for a night at a psychiatric hospital in Edinburgh, after threatening to burn down a homeless shelter. In the case of the hospital stay, he became agitated and repeatedly threw faeces at a nurse.

Robert Waite, a psychiatrist who assessed Cronin in the wake of his first offence, found marked discrepancies in Cronin’s intellectual abilities; his verbal skills operated at the university level, while his visual-spatial skills were below average. Cronin had revealed to Waite that he had felt suicidal while serving his sentence for the initial assault. Waite later concluded: „It is clear he has a severe disorder of his personality, which has grossly interfered with his social adjustment and might be expected to do so for some considerable time.“ During his discussions with the social worker, Cronin was said to be defiant and arrogant, interested in politics and expressing admiration for Nazism and dictatorship, which he felt was a form of true leadership.

Dr. John Baird, whose report on Cronin was instrumental in the initial 1992 life sentence, did a study on him. By this time, Cronin had a long criminal record and was considered by some psychiatrists as untreatable. Baird later wrote: „Regarding the question of dangerousness, his life-long behaviour pattern has been one of senseless, dishonest, unreliable and unacceptable behaviour. I have not been able to find any evidence of other behaviour similar to that which he displayed on 21 May 1992, when he committed a very serious and sustained sexual assault, nor have I been able to find any reason for his behaviour on that day.“

Of the 1992 assault on Judy X, Cronin told Baird that in his mind, she had not been there, but instead, he was imagining an assault on his maternal grandfather, with whom he had a lengthy love-hate relationship. He did talk at length about his parents; though he knew he didn’t have a good relationship with them, he described his father as a hero, while disparaging and almost disowning his mother.

Of other issues, Cronin told Baird of his need for prostitution and alcohol. Baird noted Cronin grew distressed only when discussing the 1992 attack or past abuse. Cronin also discussed with Baird his beliefs that he was reincarnated, that he’d been a soldier with the Charge of the Light Brigade. He also believed himself to be Nazi Reinhard Heydrich, as well as other persons in history.

Ultimately, Baird wrote that Cronin suffered no mental disorder that would justify institutionalising him. However, in his final notes, he added:

„[Cronin] has never, while in the community, lived in a calm, uneventful manner. The likelihood is that for a considerable time to come, he will, when in the community, behave again as he has done in the past…Personality disorders can cover a range of ills and affect different people in different ways. If a psychiatrist says such a condition is untreatable, it means there is no medication to help, but I don’t accept that any condition is entirely untreatable. There is work that could be done with John Cronin. The stumbling block is that he needs to want to be helped.“

There has been some controversy over Cronin’s case both with Cronin’s treatment himself and the issues surrounding him.

The initial criticism comes from neighbours of the Cronins during John’s childhood, in that one neighbour reported that „[f]or the first few years of his life, his mum dressed him up as a girl. She wanted a girl so she dressed John in bows and frilly blouses. No wonder he’s such a mess now“, a condition that persisted until the Cronins had a daughter in 1978.

There have also been questions regarding his relationship with his grandfather, whom Cronin claims sexually abused him during the ages of 5 to 12. This has been contradicted somewhat in cases where Cronin also referred to his grandfather as a confidant and friend.

Additionally, there has also been some controversy over his conversion to Islam while in prison. While some British Muslims welcomed his conversion, others have recalled that the 1992 Judy X incident was done while Cronin pretended to be a priest, and that conversion could be no more than a smokescreen. In particular, Dr Prem Misra, a psychiatrist at Parkhead Hospital in Glasgow, said: „He has used religious pretence to commit crime and nothing suggests that this will be different. He is remorseless.“

In a similar vein is his response to his love of politics. Though initially involving himself with the Tories, in his later years he involved himself with the British National Party, though due to issues in 2003 regarding fraud charges the BNP announced that they had denied him membership and would campaign to have him evicted from his then-residence.

Lastly is media controversy. Several Scottish media outlets have followed his case, leading to some criticism of overzealotry and stalking. Scottish News of the World reported that vigilantes threatened to lynch him, while reporters from The Sun exposed his home, reporting that they found „the monster in hiding“ and printed a picture of where Cronin was „holed up.“ Another tabloid printed on its front page a plea to „HELP US KEEP TABS ON THE BEAST. Women and children are living in fear because sick Cronin is to walk free. Help us to keep them safe by telling us what you know of his whereabouts.“

Ergin was born on May 21, 1915 in Gaziantep, in southeastern Turkey. He completed his primary, secondary, and high school education in Gaziantep under difficult conditions, with many interruptions due to French occupation of the city during World War I. After completing his basic education, he received his B.Sc. degree in mathematics at Istanbul University. In June 1937, he was sent by the Mineral Research and Exploration Institute of Turkey (MTA) to study mining, metallurgical, and petroleum engineering at Bergakademie Freiberg near Dresden, Germany. His studies were interrupted by World War II, but he moved to the United States to continue his education. He studied geophysics and geology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and received his B.Sc. degree in geological sciences there on December 18, 1942. In the meantime, he began studying for his M.Sc. degree with Beno Gutenberg at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and obtained the degree in 1943. After Ergin received his master’s degree, Gutenberg suggested he study seismic wave reflection and refraction at the rock-water interface for a Ph.D. degree. Unfortunately, MTA Institute requested his return to Turkey because his services were needed.

Ergin worked at Caltech as a research fellow for a while and then returned to Turkey. He was appointed director of the Department of Geology at MTA Institute on March 1953, and served until 1956 on various important projects. On June 15, 1956, he was appointed professor of geophysics at the Faculty of Mining Engineering of Istanbul Technical University (ITU), where he established a modern department of geophysical engineering and trained many students over the years.

Kazım Ergin died aged 87 in Istanbul on November 24, 2002. He was recipient of „TÜBİTAK Service Award“.